Hybrid Meetings: What Do They Really Cost?

Laptop screen with images of many participants in a virtual session.
Credit: Chris Montgomery, Unsplash

By Antoinette WinklerPrins, AAG Council Treasurer


Photo of Antoinette WinklerPrinsThis is the second of a short series of perspectives by 2024-2026 Council Treasurer Antoinette WinklerPrins—a series designed to help illuminate some of the financial challenges a professional organization such as the AAG faces. In this column, she offers information about the costs of managing a hybrid annual meeting, such as the one AAG has supported since 2023. Read the first installment.

When the pandemic started, we all learned quickly how to use virtual meeting tools to continue to do knowledge work, and to connect socially.  COVID-related social distancing forced us into the virtual meeting space, yet we soon realized that virtual access created opportunities for participation and engagement that had not been available before—a very positive outcome of a disruptive global event.  Since we emerged from the pandemic, the expectation for a virtual option for any meetings is more prevalent, and organizations are responding in varied ways. AAG is one of the relatively few professional organizations that remains committed to a synchronous hybrid annual meeting.

We are making this commitment to make sure this important professional event is accessible to those who cannot travel or who make a personal choice to not travel. At a larger scale, we are also committed to lowering the carbon footprint of our meetings. (We are on track to reduce meeting-related emissions by 45% by 2030.)

Members are sometimes surprised that the virtual option does not result in a lower cost for the meeting, including registration. After all, a virtual meeting seems to be less complicated than traveling in person.  Isn’t it less costly, too?

Unfortunately, no. Let me explain.

Two Words: Tech and Labor

While the participation and engagement components of virtual or hybrid meetings are positive, lower cost is not one of the benefits. The benefits of virtual or hybrid meetings come at a cost, chiefly for technology and in labor.

Tech: The ability to hold a virtual or hybrid meeting depends on technology and IT support to ensure that all functions smoothly.  AAG carefully researches and combines the most complementary and budget-friendly services and platforms possible to support its hybrid meetings, from the platform that hosts meeting submissions and all video-streamed sessions to integrations with meeting software onsite. In addition, hardware is needed: up-to-date computers, video screens, microphones, and equipment with recording capabilities for room set up. There are also critical aspects of a hybrid meeting that are easy to overlook but need a modest financial investment, notably online helpdesk software to approximate in-person responses to questions at registration.

Labor: Qualified people need to be available to run it all, at a scale serving many thousands of participants simultaneously. Both on- and offsite IT assistance is needed, and must be staffed by people who are adept at monitoring and troubleshooting for live gatherings simultaneously with livestreaming for virtual guests.  Skilled labor is the single most important expenditure for a meeting, and is also the most direct way for AAG’s economic activity to benefit people, be it our local host location or offsite locations. Paying fair wages for this expertise is critical: meeting rooms with a hybrid component are a complex visual and aural experience. Virtual meetings, too, are not as simple as “plug and play.” These rooms must be monitored in case of a variety of challenges, from technical issues to participant safety and security. Virtual and hybrid sessions raise the possibility of having to troubleshoot with participants using older versions of applications and programs; this can take a lot of time. Onsite, coordinating with hotels and conference center staff can also add to the cost of labor to support a hybrid meeting.

Cost Proportions for Hybrid Meetings

Nainoa Thompson, AAG Honorary Geographer, speaking at AAG 2024 in Honolulu.
AAG’s 2024 Honorary Geographer plenary with Nainoa Thompson in Honolulu was a hybrid session.

On the basis of AAG’s 2023 and 2024 meetings, we’ve found that registrations for the virtual option cover roughly one-half of its costs. Virtual registration fees contributed about 12% of meeting revenues at the 2023 Annual Meeting, while virtual services accounted for 24% of total meeting costs. In Honolulu, the proportion was similar: 9% revenue to 18% of costs.

The costs above don’t just represent the sessions that occur online. Also included are the costs of live-streaming in-person sessions and providing meeting presenters with the opportunity to hold hybrid sessions (virtual presenter in a streamed in-person session). Since major keynotes and panels are live-streamed, these are the events that make a hybrid conference feel like one conference, instead of two parallel and unequal experiences in-person and online.

We believe the value of maintaining a hybrid and virtual option for the annual meeting transcends the bottom line. Hybrid is the best possible way to make sure the meeting is accessible, not only for those who can register at in-person rates and travel, but for members who cannot travel or wish to reduce their climate impact. It also contributes significantly to AAG’s efforts to shrink our carbon footprint, combined with supportive innovations such as the development of regional nodes that connect with the main meeting.

The annual meeting means a lot to all of us: a time to gather, share knowledge, network, and grow the discipline. When we set new registration fees, we were careful not to do so in a “one size fits all” way. We set the new fees for a proportional cost sharing, rather than trying to pass on all costs to members.  We hope this creates the best possible value for our members at a financially sustainable cost. For all of us.

Please feel free to reach out to me or Gary Langham, AAG’s ED with questions, comments, or concerns. Send your comments and questions with the subject line “Treasurer’s Corner” to [email protected].

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John (Jack) Ives

October 15, 1931-September 15, 2024

The mountain geography community mourns the passing of one of its most significant exponents, the bearer of a monumental scientific world in favor of mountain research and development worldwide. Jack D. Ives died on September 15, 2024, at age 93.

As academicians Vladimir Kotlyakov and Yuri Badenkov (2024) indicated, “Professor Jack Ives is a living legend of mountain geography in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. His name is well known not only among scientists, politicians, public figures, but the inhabitants of many mountain settlements of the world, from the Himalaya and Pamir to the Andes and European Alps, from Scotland and the Caucasus to Iceland and China.” In 2015, Bruno Messerli said that Jack “devoted his life not only to mountain research, but also to mountain development, on behalf of the people and communities living in mountain areas.” He drew attention to the plight of indigenous peoples living in mountainous regions and advocated for their inclusion in policy-making processes concerning their lands and resources. His work went beyond academia, influencing international policy on the livelihoods and rights of mountain people.

Jack Ives’ long-term work at the International Geographical Union has played an important role in shaping the global discourse on mountain environments. In 1972 he took over the chairmanship of the Commission on High Altitude Geoecology from then-president Carl Troll, who had established the Commission during the 1968 International Geographical Conference in New Delhi. Jack then alternated with his colleague Bruno Messerli until 1996. This role drew him increasingly into mountain studies. He left an indelible mark within the IGU, in promoting geographical research on mountains and sustainable development. Under his leadership, the Commission focused on interdisciplinary research and worked to improve global understanding of the importance of mountain ecosystems. In this context, in the 1970s Ives became particularly interested in environmental issues in the Himalayas. The increasing international focus on environmental degradation in mountainous regions, such as deforestation, soil erosion and the impact on local communities, led him to advocate for sustainable mountain development. His 1989 book The Himalayan Dilemma: Reconciling Development and Conservation, co-authored with colleague Bruno Messerli, challenged the prevailing understanding of environmental degradation in the Himalayas and changed the trajectory of conservation policy in the region. This work marked a turning point in mountain research and policy and established Ives as a leading figure in the advocacy of mountain sustainability. He played an important role in making mountains a key element in global environmental policy, especially at the Earth Summit in 1992. He was instrumental in shaping the globally recognized “Mountain Agenda” for UNCED at Rio. This agenda called for greater attention to mountain ecosystems and their importance for biodiversity, water resources and human livelihoods. His efforts helped to establish the concept of “sustainable mountain development”, which remains a guiding principle in the field today. Since then, his leadership brought mountain issues to the forefront of the global environmental agenda.

His name is linked to the creation of the International Mountain Society (IMS) and the leading journals of the discipline: Mountain Research and Development, and Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research. He developed “Project 6 (Mountains) of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere” on “Human Impacts on Mountain Ecosystems” with Bruno Messerli and were key in catalyzing a group of mountain geographers into what he called amicably “the Mountain Mafia” as the movers-and-shakers for the advocacy that culminated incorporating Chapter 13 (Mountains) within the United Nations’ agenda for sustainable development (Agenda 21). They also coedited a book considered by most mountain geographers as the “bible” for mountain studies at the global level in 1997. Mountains of the World: A Global Priority became the framework to start conservation projects, academic projects and international organizations in favor of mountains. The book was translated to many languages with regional appeals. They were also key in formulating the UN-declared 2002 as the “International Year of Mountains” and thereafter November 11th, as “International Mountain Day.”

Jack D. Ives’ numerous studies and pioneering initiatives with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Mountain Agenda including the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), ICIMOD, and FAO have been instrumental in shaping international policy on mountain conservation, and his work within the IGU has helped to raise awareness of the academic importance of mountains in global development agendas, drawing attention to the unique challenges facing mountain ecosystems and communities worldwide. He has been honored with many awards, including the King Albert I Gold Medal (2002), the Royal Geographical Society Patron’s Medal (2006), the Icelandic Knight’s Cross of the Order of the Falcon (2007), and two separate Distinguished Career Awards from the Association of American Geographers. The inaugural Sir Edmund Hillary Mountain Heritage Medal Lifetime Achievement Award (2015) was presented to him to recognize lifetime achievement in mountain research and development.

Presentation of 2015 Lifetime Achievement edition of the Hillary Medal, October 29, 2015. L to R: Pauline Ives, Jack Ives, Simon Tucker, New Zealand High Commissioner to Canada, Kali Prasad Pokhrel, ambassador of Nepal to Canada.

He received the Honorary Membership to the Commission of Mountain Studies with a diploma conferred at the 35th International Geographical Congress in Dublin, Ireland just this past summer in 2024, recognizing his fertile and restless work on mountain research and studies. The Diploma, decorated with a gaze from Alexander von Humboldt (Jack’s inspiration) recognizes his pioneering spirit and fruitful work, which will continue to illuminate the path for future montology.

Jack had been the one to suggest the laying of a bronze plaque honoring Humboldt as “the father of Montology” on a cairn at the snowline of Mt. Chimborazo in Ecuador, in December 1998 after the III International Symposium of the Andean Mountains Association (AMA). Indigenous community members, along with Christoph Stadel, Larry Hamilton, Maximina Monasterio, Robert Rhoades, Fausto Sarmiento, the Chimborazo Fauna Reserve administrators, and others, shared in Jack’s admonition that could well be the corollary of his monumental and passionate lifelong advocacy: “For a better balance between mountain environment, development of resources, and the well-being of mountain peoples.”

Colleagues and those who worked closely with him often emphasized his generosity, both in terms of his time and his willingness to mentor and support young mountain geographers. They also admired his ability to blend scientific research with activism as he sought to bring practical, policy-oriented solutions to the environmental problems he studied. It is comforting to know that many of his students, following the exemplary work of this giant, helped to cement transdisciplinary mountain research and study, becoming themselves champions of mountain geography works. Many of them are already retired from teaching, but proudly continue Ives’ model inspiring mountain lore contributing effectively to enrich the genealogy of montology with their emeritus wisdom. After Ives’ retirement, as scholarly recognition of brilliant mentors in academia, a Festschrift was published in his honor (Mainali & Sicroff, 2016) with an apropos title: Montologist.

Now that the discipline of Montology has been firmly positioned as the transdisciplinary mountain research and study, the image of Jack D. Ives will be forever reflected in the deep understanding of mountains as socioecological systems, where consilience and convergence favor decolonized scholarship of mountains, integrating the local knowledge and making real the critical biogeography and political ecology of the many dilemmas that still pervade militarized, marginalized, and exploited mountain communities in the world’s mountainscapes (Sarmiento 2020).  It is with a heavy heart that the Commission of Mountain Studies of the International Geographical Union received the news of his passing, but it is with a hopeful spirit to commit maintaining Jack D. Ives’ lofty goals for the mountains alive and well!

 

References

Kotlyakov V.M., Badenkov Y.P. (eds). 2024. “History and evolution of the UNESCO MAB-6 mountain project human impact on mountain ecosystems: From ecology to montology.” Preface by Jack D. Ives to the book. Mountain Regions of Russia at the Turn of the Century: Research and Development. Problems of Geography Series, volume 158. Moscow: Media Press.

Mainali K, Sicroff S (eds). 2016. Jack D. Ives, Montologist: Festschrift for a Mountain Advocate. Himalayan Association for the Advancement of Science. pp. 94–97. ISBN 978-9937-0-1567-7.

Sarmiento, F.O.  2020. Montology Manifesto: echoes towards a transdisciplinary science of mountains. Journal of Mountain Science, 17(10): 2512-2527. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-019-5536-2.


This memorial was prepared by Fausto Sarmiento, Professor of Geography and Director of the Neotropical Montology Collaboratory at the University of Georgia; Neslihan Dal, Lecturer, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning at Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University; Alexey Gunya, Professor of Geography at the Russian Academy of Sciences; and Christoph Stadel, Emeritus Professor of Geography, at the University of Salzburg.

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Michigan Central Station: “The Sublime Object” of Detroit

An exterior panoramic view of Michigan Central Station and surrounding areas in Detroit. Credit: Stephen McGee
An exterior panoramic view of Michigan Central Station and surrounding areas in Detroit. Credit: Stephen McGee

In 2019, as the renovation of Michigan Central Station (MCS) in Detroit was getting underway, geographer Lucas Pohl captured some of the mythology and mystery that arose around the station in its more than forty years of decline:

One of the first lessons I learned while visiting Detroit is that you cannot speak about the city without facing its past. While this could be said of most places, it is a particular obsession of Detroiters to point to the city’s history in order to explain its present (and future). If you base Detroit solely on ‘what you see’, you do not get the ‘whole thing’.”

—Lucas Pohl,The sublime object of Detroit,” in Social and Cultural Geography (2021, Vol. 22, No. 8)

In 2015, Detroiters had described to Pohl the special place that the 1913 Beaux Arts-style Michigan Central Station has occupied in their minds—reflections of awe that speak from the last decade to its era of grandeur, its painful descent into ruins, and its 2024 reopening as a community and commercial hub once more:

Michigan Central Station is a special case. We have lots of skyscrapers that were empty for a long time, but the train station has a special place in the people’s hearts.”

“It’s just the One.”

“It’s a thing for everyone . . . I see it and I’m like, ‘Oh, I love Detroit.’”

 

People walk through the interior hall of Michigan Central Station in Detroit. Credit: Stephanie Rhoades Hume, Michigan Center
People walk through the interior hall of Michigan Central Station in Detroit. Credit: Stephanie Rhoades Hume, Michigan Center

New Life for the MCS

The recent renovation of the Michigan Central Station focuses on its future as a tech and mobility hub on 30 acres, with 1.2 million square feet of public and commercial space. Ford Motor Company was the lead on its renovation, with partners like Google and Newlab joining the State of Michigan and the City of Detroit. Yet this building also lives within more than 100 years of shared memories and history. Its presence in the public imagination remains a central element in its new life.

Just as there is plenty to remark on in the rebirth of the station, from the craftsmanship brought back to life to the careful planning for a mix of uses and inclusion of skills and jobs programming, Detroit historian Jamon Jordan also sheds light on the many reasons the station’s history is important to the city’s life.

On the grand reopening in June 2024, Jordan shared an op ed published in the Detroit Free Press, detailing the rich history of Michigan Central. From his childhood memories of the station in 1977, about a decade before it closed—many believed for good—Jordan traces back to the people, events, and stories that made Michigan Central a nerve center of city and Black history long before it became an emblem of decay during Detroit’s tough years at the end of the 20th century.

When the Erie Canal opened in 1825, Jordan recounts, it sparked a mass migration from the East Coast, either with Detroit as their destination, or through the city to Chicago. Starting in the 1830s, the railroad became a feature of the landscape, and the Michigan Central Railroad became a fixture by 1846.

One of the most consequential figures Jordan brings to life is Elijah McCoy, an African American engineer who began working for the Michigan Central Railroad in 1866. Born in Ontario, Canada, in 1844 to parents who escaped on the Underground Railroad, McCoy was trained in Scotland, but was “allowed only to be a lubricator and fireman on the railroad” because he was Black, says Jordan. This talented engineer was relegated to oiling the train’s moving parts and shoveling coal.

Undeterred, McCoy invented “an automatic lubricator that could oil the train’s moving parts as it was moving, eliminating the need for trains to make frequent stops,” says Jordan, thus gaining the last laugh and transforming the capacity of the railroad industry.

An era came to an end when the old 1884 Central Station was destroyed in a fire in 1913. The present building occupies a different site at 14th and Michigan. Until it closed in 1988–due to declining rail ridership nationwide and the attrition in both employers and residents in Detroit–its vast grandeur greeted thousands of travelers, including the hopeful members of the African American Great Migration. Many of them, migrating from the segregated South, had only dreamed of an arrival like this one, into a public train station without a single set of discriminating signs for “Whites” and “Coloreds.”

Jordan brings together touchstones of history through the station’s life, from international fame to personal connection: from Ossian Sweet to Joe Louis to Lucinda Ruffin—Jordan’s own grandmother.

Once, Michigan Central Station had 10 gates for trains, and its 18-story tower held 500 offices. In the station’s heyday in the 1940s, more than 4,000 passengers passed through each day. The six-year renovation preserves many of the original structures exterior and interior architectural details, and also addresses renovations at two nearby buildings, which will now house an innovation space called NewLab, and a mobility hub that incorporates greenspace, pedestrian, and bicycle connections. The result may well be a new Detroit place that is still worthy of Jacques Lacan’s somber definition of a “sublime object,” as Pohl describes it: “a remainder of loss that triggers a strong nostalgia,” yet that also can contribute to the city’s future.

Find out more about Detroit history from Black Scroll Network. Read an analysis of the fall and rise of Michigan Central in this article by Wayne State University’s Mila Puccini and Jeffrey Horner. 

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Where We Stand: AAG’s Current Finances

Two people review and discuss financial documents

By Antoinette WinklerPrins, AAG Council Treasurer


Photo of Antoinette WinklerPrinsThis is the first of a short series of perspectives by 2024-2026 Council Treasurer Antoinette WinklerPrins. In this first column, she offers the overview of AAG’s recovery and lessons from the hard hits of COVID-19 and annual meeting cancellations. Future columns will look at topics from a member’s perspective—Have you ever wondered why having a conference hotel is so important? What the costs for a hybrid or virtual meeting are? Dr. WinklerPrins will take up those questions in future issues of the Newsletter.


When I stepped up to become AAG’s Council Treasurer this year, I had already been a devoted member of AAG for more than 25 years, and had served on the AAG Council since 2023, and as East Lakes Regional Councilor from 2009-2012. Now I am fulfilling the position of Treasurer, learning more every day about what it entails. It is teaching me valuable lessons that I’d like to share with you about how I and the rest of the AAG Council can serve you, the AAG members. Becoming Treasurer has also given me a sense of purpose to explain aspects of AAG’s budgetary and fiscal responsibilities that help provide context for AAG’s decisions on members’ behalf.

In my professional life, I am a geographer serving as the Deputy Division Director of the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences at the U.S. National Science Foundation. I served as a Program Director in the Geography and Spatial Science/Human-Environmental and Geographical Sciences prior to becoming a Deputy Division Director. I have served on the faculty of Michigan State University and retain an adjunct appointment at the Johns Hopkins University’s Environmental Sciences and Policy Program.

As a member of AAG, I already understood that the governing body of the AAG, the AAG Council, has fiduciary responsibility for the organization. As Treasurer, I have come to appreciate the considerable time that the Council devotes to reviewing the state of AAG financials during each of its meetings.  I have learned how to work closely with the AAG Executive Director and Director of Finance and Accounting, and how to head the AAG Finance Committee.

When I joined Council in July 2023, AAG was emerging from the worst of the pandemic and absorbing the costs of cancelling three in-person meetings in a row. Along with that loss came significant investment in hosting virtual meetings. Because the Annual Meeting has long been the AAG’s main source of revenue, these three years of cancelled meetings were very hard on the financial wellbeing of the organization.

One of the major shifts AAG made soon after the pandemic was not only fiscally sound but in line with its climate goals: the move to a new headquarters that is LEED Gold and highly rated for accessibility and walkability. AAG’s staff work hybrid schedules to reduce trips, and the move resulted in a significant rainy day fund from the sale of the old headquarters.

In 2023, Council approved several more steps to stabilize AAG:

  • Membership dues were increased on July 1, after a six-week campaign to make sure current members had the chance to renew at existing rates and take advantage of multi-year membership for up to three years. AAG had not increased membership dues since 2008, even though inflation-linked incremental increases are the norm in many organizations such as the AAG. This adjustment has aligned dues with current costs for member services—and AAG added two discounted membership categories for faculty and staff of Minority-Serving Institutions and K-12 teachers.
  • AAG has adopted a break-even model for registration pricing for its annual meeting, opting to retain the hybrid option for maximum choices for all members. To reflect the true costs of a hybrid option while protecting discounted rates as much as possible, AAG raised registration rates, but not uniformly across all categories. Additional discount categories were added here, also.
  • AAG reluctantly undertook a staff reduction last summer to reduce fixed costs, and has sought other cost-cutting opportunities in its operating expenses.
  • Because many of AAG’s fiscal measures will take time to have full effect, the Association has needed to use money from Council-restricted reserves to make up the shortfalls. Now, AAG must shift emphasis and rebuild these reserves. Therefore, September, Council voted to prioritize building up our reserves and endowment again before embarking on costly or risky initiatives.
  • As part of its work to diversify revenue beyond the annual meeting, AAG has embarked on a major internal effort to seek and secure grants. Two projects—the Convening of Care and the new GAIA project—have already received funding from the National Science Foundation, with eight more proposals currently in play.

I am confident in the management of AAG and can assure you that the decisions the Council has made recently are stabilizing AAG’s financials, ensuring the organization’s continued viability. Plans for prudent fiscal management for the next few years are critical to helping the organization build up future reserves so that it can sustain its important work supporting its members and the discipline of geography. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we rebuild. Please feel free to reach out to me or Gary Langham, AAG’s ED with questions, comments, or concerns. Send your comments and questions with the subject line “Treasurer’s Corner” to [email protected].

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AAG Journal Articles on Black Geographies and Racial Justice

Image showing signs placed on fencing outside Lafayette Park in Washington, DC, on June 7, 2020; photo by Becky Pendergast
Credit: Becky Pendergast

The following titles reflect vital scholarship on Black Geographies in AAG’s journals in recent years. Through September 30, 2024, AAG and Taylor & Francis are providing free access to these articles, available for download at the links listed below.

For additional reading recommendations, see Black Geographies Reading List, sponsored by the AAG Black Geographies Specialty Group.

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Richard L. Morrill

Professor Emeritus Richard L. Morrill passed away on March 28, 2024. He had been ill for several years and passed away with his wife and best friend at his bedside.

Dick was born in Los Angeles California in 1935. He received his B.A. in Geography from Dartmouth in 1955. He moved to the University of Washington in Seattle that year to pursue a master’s degree under Edward Ullman. Ullman was about to undertake fieldwork in Italy, however, so he moved to work with William Garrison, who was a pioneer in statistical methods and analysis. Dick and his cohort became known as the “Space Cadets.” During the Quantitative Revolution, Dick was part of a group of geographers who sought to transform the discipline from an idiographic regional tradition to a modern, mature spatial science.

After receiving his Ph.D. from Washington in 1959 (on the effects of the U.S interstate highway system on the use of medical services) he became an assistant professor of Geography at Northwestern University. In 1961 he became a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Lund, Sweden. That year he returned to the University of Washington in Seattle as an assistant professor. He would spend the rest of his career there, retiring in 1997. He was a founder of the Institute of Environmental Studies at UW and the first director of the Ph.D. program in Urban Design and Planning. He held appointments in Health Sciences, the Center for Demography and Ecology, and the Graduate School of Public Affairs.

Across his vast career, Dick published eight monographs, over 80 journal articles, as well as 54 chapters in books and proceedings. His books include The Geography of Poverty in the United States (1971), The Spatial Organization of Society (1972), and Political Redistricting and Geographic Theory (1981). He received eight NSF grants, a Guggenheim fellowship (1983-1984), and the University of Washington Distinguished Retiree Excellence in Community Service Award in 2014, amongst many other awards and recognition.

Dick chaired the Washington Geography Department from 1973 to 1983. He was president of the Western Regional Science Association (1992-1994). He served as AAG President in 1983. His presidential address “The Responsibility of Geography” was published in the Annals in 1984, volume 74, issue 1.

Dick’s interests were wide ranging. He was an economic geographer interested in location theory, transportation, regional planning and development. He was a socio-political geographer interested in inequality, segregation, health services, redistricting and local government reform. He was an urban geographer interested in population and migration, growth management, and regional planning. He was a methodologist interested in quantitative and spatial analysis, location and movement models. Finally, Dick was a geographer with regional expertise in the United States, the Pacific Northwest, and the Seattle metropolitan area. He taught in all these areas. He supervised 22 M.A. students and 30 Ph.D. students.

He was appointed as Special Master to the Federal District Court in Seattle to redraw Washington state legislative and congressional electoral districts in 1972. This led to work in major Supreme Court cases on political gerrymandering, and with the U.S. Justice Department on redistricting in Mississippi. Other professional service included serving on the Hanford Environmental Dose Reconstruction Project (1986-1996), drawing maps for the Seattle School District to desegregate schools (1987-1989), conducting a Branch Campus Demographic Analysis for the State of Washington (1988-1989), and drawing proposed City Council districts for a (successful) ballot initiative to shift the City of Seattle from an all at-large Council to a mostly district-based one (2012-2013). He did numerous demographic and spatial analyses including issues of Native fishing rights (the Boldt decision), and the gentrification and African-American displacement of Seattle’s Central District neighborhood.

Dick always melded his political activism with his teaching and scholarship. Besides teaching Garrison’s Geography 426 Quantitative Methods in Geography, Dick created Geography 342 Geography and Inequality (both of which are still on the books in the department!).

Dick was a member of Students for a Democratic Society, and the UW Student Peace Union. He refused to sign the anti-Communist loyalty oath at UW in the early 1960s, and was part of a court case to abolish it. He was the first single man in Washington to be allowed to adopt a child. He worked over three years with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) from 1960 to 1964 doing research, legal, and street action. His chapter of CORE chartered a bus to the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) for the 1964 March on Washington. He worked with the American Friends Service Committee on peace issues and reform of mental institutions. He was also a member of the North Cascades Conservation council.

Amidst all this, Dick was a kind, compassionate, caring, and upbeat person. In a 1998 talk he referred to himself as a “uncurable idealist.”  He is survived by his wife Joanne, sons Lee and Andrew, and his daughter Jean and her husband Dave.

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AAG Travel Policy

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Remaking Hawaiʻi Into Someone Else’s Paradise